A Legacy of Storms and Starlight by Victoria J. Price

Author:Victoria J. Price [Price, Victoria J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Victoria J. Price
Published: 2022-02-21T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

“Here, drink this.” Saphi handed over a steaming mug. She’d taken Zylah through the curtains behind the counter, away from Mala and the others. The room was small, dark. Only a candle lit the space, softly illuminating the floor to ceiling shelves opposite the lounger Zylah sat on.

She sniffed at the dark liquid. Besa leaves. To calm her. She took a sip and focused on the ache in her back. The pain had become so frequent it was familiar. Comforting, in its own way. Something to concentrate on.

Saphi sat on the floor beside her, a bowl of warm water and a flannel in her lap. “I know you said you weren’t injured. But I still need to check. Clean some of this blood up. Okay?”

“Why?” Zylah whispered. “Why does Arnir hate the Fae? Why is he doing this?”

Candlelight flickered off the Fae’s earrings and her vanilla perfume filled the space between them. “He’s doing what his father did, and his father before him.” She dipped the flannel in the water and wrung it out between her hands, took the mug from Zylah and placed it on the floor beside her.

“But there has to be a reason why.” Zylah let Saphi take her hand and wash away the blood. She was certain she hadn’t been injured. A little bruised from the creature—the Aster—knocking her off her feet. But nothing she hadn’t endured before.

Saphi’s brow scrunched together for a moment before she looked up at Zylah through thick lashes. In this light, her amber eyes were a dark gold—kind, gentle. Like Kara’s. The pain seemed to pierce Zylah’s chest again.

The Fae turned her hand over and washed the blood away in methodical, gentle movements. “I could tell you it’s about balance. About humans wanting to be treated equally. And it might have been about that once. But after a few hundred years of bloodshed, it became clear that it was about greed. On both sides.” Saphi wrung out the bloodied flannel and took Zylah’s other hand.

Zylah was barely paying attention. She should have stemmed the blood flow right away, should have compressed Mala’s wounds. It was one thing for Zylah to come to terms with her part in the plans to take Arnir’s life, to accept the fate that awaited him, whether he deserved it or not; a life was a life. But it was another thing entirely to have had Mala’s life snuffed out as she lay in the dirt.

“The Fae are not native to these lands. It’s said we came here and lived peacefully with the humans at first. But we got greedy. Took too much and treated the humans as glorified slaves. A rebellion was inevitable.” Saphi wiped the last of the blood away and set her flannel to one side before handing Zylah the tea. “Drink,” she said with a small smile. “Raif will walk you home in a minute.”

Zylah took a sip and watched Saphi clear everything away. “I’ll evanesce back. I’ll be fine.” Truthfully, she didn’t know if she could.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.